It’s been 5 months and 12 days since my surgery. Time for a short update, since March blog. Fitness is fine and I feel no different from before surgery–so all is good from that most important perspective. What about the little stuff?
1. Weight is back to two years ago. That’s higher than what I hoped for and about 5lbs above last year (when I was training hard for the Haute Route Alps–this relates to the next point):
2. What about strength? My last FTP test last week was 10W above the previous one in March, which is further progress. Yet I am still about 10% below my usual numbers. (Yes, I was easier on myself in my assessment last March when I stated the same.) How much can I blame on illness 5-6 months ago? Not sure…
Surgery surely gave me am easy excuse until a wake-up call two days ago. When I told my cycling buddy James after a spirited group ride that I still wasn’t up to regular levels he replied “off course you’re not!” Asking why he said that, I got an unexpected response: “you haven’t been training as you used to.”
Humm, that did get me thinking… So I decided to do 4 x 8min LT this morning which confirmed my suspicion: I indeed haven’t been training as I used to and it shows.
Moral of the story: I wanted to track my improvement path since surgery and the gradient is positive (yet falling, as expected) but there are indeed two confounding effects that I cannot disentangle: time since surgery (easy) and training intensity during that time. (I could add a third excuse: getting older.) Controlled scientific experiments are difficult!
(For those readers who stumble on this blog after googling “fitness after laparoscopic surgery”, do share your progress in the comments.)
Next test will be on Ventoux in a few weeks–hopefully with Gerry. Stay tuned…
Jan Van Mieghem 
Jan, if you are going to be gauging your recovery based on comparison with me on Ventoux, I think you might be pleasantly surprised 😉 See you soon!
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